Good Sports: Unterreiner succeeds at his alma mater

Notre Dame head boys' basketball coach Paul Unterreiner during the Notre Dame Bulldogs' 70-54 win over Cape Central Tigers in the semifinals of the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament on Saturday, Dec. 28, 2019, at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau.

Southeast Missourian file

Good Sports is a column featured weekly in the Southeast Missourian and on semoball.com. It is primarily designed to showcase people who have impacted the sporting life of Southeast Missouri, so that readers may get to know them more fully. Responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Today: Paul Unterreiner, 37, head boys basketball coach, dean of student activities and campus minister, Notre Dame Regional High School. A NDRHS alum, Unterreiner has compiled a 117-54 record after six years at the Bulldogs’ helm. Unterreiner, a native of Cape Girardeau, graduated from NDRHS in 2002 and Southeast Missouri State in 2006. He later earned a master’s in secondary administration from William Woods University. His 2019-20 Bulldogs (26-4) earned a Final Four slot last spring before COVID-19 stopped all U.S. sports in mid-March. Unterreiner and Notre Dame girls coach Kirk Boeller were among a quartet of Class 4 coaches to be named Coach of the Year by the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association (MBCA).

It has been five months since sports were shut down in the United States. Your team’s shot at a state title was abruptly stopped. How do you reflect on the moment you found out?

We were so high on that Saturday at (Perryville’s) St. Vincent DePaul gym, as good of a basketball atmosphere as I’ve experienced when we punched our ticket to state. It was maybe 10 percent of the size of a crowd we normally have at the Dawg Pound, but it felt packed. Our guys grew up playing on that court, so they were quite familiar. Our girls’ team, which had just earned its berth in Springfield, was in the stands cheering us on. Just two days later, we got the call and then we had to tell the kids it was over in (Notre Dame’s) chapel. There were tears. As sad as it was, it made me proud of our group of men that day. I still don’t know that I’ve processed how I feel yet. All of us in the back of our minds knew (a shutdown) was a possibility. It was gut-wrenching.

Was the team your best one yet?

For overall record and team success, yes. But I have a special place in my heart for my first (2014-15) squad. Two of our seniors tore ACLs, Derek Hulshof and Grant Ressel, and we still went to state that year.

Best player you’ve coached to-date?

What a tough question! In a single season, I’ve got to go with Tyler Landewee’s performance for us this past year. Special player. Dynamic from day one. I’ve got to also mention Dawson Dohogne, who was a 1,000-point (career) scorer. Have to add Blake Bauwens and Quinn Poythress to the list too.

You played for Notre Dame, didn’t you?

I was a reserve shooting guard and rarely took off my jacket during games. I played rarely. I got into a game against Sikeston once. Seven seconds left in the game and I put up a 3-point shot that came nowhere close to the hoop. I tell that story to my players.

Why? Many coaches might want their players to think they were invincible on the court.

I know what it is like to be the guy at the end of the bench. I lived it. Being a reserve player gives me perspective for every guy on my teams. I’m honest about my playing career and I’ve found my players (similarly) will be honest with me. I must get buy-in from every guy, not just the starters, because otherwise team chemistry will be impacted negatively.

How honest do you get?

I’ll tell a student-athlete that he’s not going to play but we need him. You must have these sincere conversations. You have to address the tough things openly and honestly.

You coach boys, but you used to coach both genders at Notre Dame.

For four years, I was a junior varsity and freshman coach for the girls initially. After that, I did four more years as JV coach for the boys. The boys job came open in 2014 when then-head coach Kevin Roberts took another position.

Break down the differences in coaching girls as opposed to boys.

I liked coaching the girls a lot. I’ve found if you give girls an impossible task, they’ll keep trying. A female student, if she respects you, wants your approval. Boys? They’re a little more stubborn. You have to get after boys a little more.

Some coaches like their teams to play as quickly as possible, to get up and down the court fast, go-go uptempo ball.

Every year, we’d like to do that, but it is really a matter of your personnel. We usually struggle to post 80 points per game. My goal is to keep the opponent to under 60.

You had a game at the Dawg Pound where the scoring was quite low against a rival.

You mean the 38-37 double overtime game against Cape Central. It’s the weirdest game I ever coached. We literally held the ball for something like four minutes. We got the win, fortunately.

How vital is the coach to a team’s success?

We don’t win games without players. A coach’s job is to get the guys to play as hard as they possibly can, which generally doesn’t happen without proper guidance. A coach should build a relationship with players. That’s more important than drawing up a particular set or scheme. Kids have so much going on in their lives that a coach ought to be able to help them let things go for a couple of hours while they’re practicing or in a game situation. I’m very much a believe in the adage: “It’s not about the Xs and Os, it’s about the Jimmys and Joes.”